When he talks of his prospects and situation, he invariably places himself within the team, the collective of him and the hundreds of behind-the-scenes unknowns that make it happen. It doesn’t come across as an affectation, but rather the natural way of somebody entirely at home with his team. Underlying that is a faith. A faith that the MP4-24 debacle is not indicative of a trend but merely a blip, that McLaren will inevitably return to the front. “This latest upturn is very important for us. Everybody has been flat out improving the car all year but the developments have not really been bringing a step forwards until this time. When that happens it’s draining to everybody. All that effort and still it’s not happening. To finally get that step forward is something we’ve waited so long for and it’s now exciting again to be getting in the car, knowing you have something you can do something with.”
It means little in terms of his 2009 prospects, which he admits he’d pretty much written off even before the first race. But the belated correlation between effort and competitiveness suggests that the team have found true north and are able to orient themselves to a 2010 car that will benefit from the new understanding.
“Basically the teams that competed for the world championship last year — us and Ferrari — have been six months behind. Now six months into the new season we’re starting to catch these guys up.” Talk to the team about how they got it so badly wrong, how one of the best resourced teams in the pit lane could have come up with a car that was so far off the pace and it’s clear that there was a measure of arrogance involved.
The most radical aerodynamic regulation change in more than a decade made for a new set of requirements, where it was no longer about iterating an already proven concept. The team’s simulation tools suggested a target of downforce level that they believed absolutely.
They had the best, most sophisticated simulation tools in the business, established the most forward-looking computerised modelling systems, drawing on the best boffin brains from within the industry and from academia. There seemed a direct correlation between all these things and the superb raw performance of the McLarens of the previous two seasons — the very cars with which Hamilton arrived in F1.
Why should they stop believing? So they believed the answers, chased a target level of downforce that with hindsight was way too low and when the design met that target, so everything seemed good. It was only during the off-season winter tests, when everyone is out on track together, that the awful reality dawned.
Other teams had adopted a more pragmatic approach, had not first sought a numerical answer then set about matching it. The others had instead thought laterally about how to maximise downforce within the new constraints — and measured afterwards. They had simulation tools too, but they were used to verify, not to set the parameters. It seems McLaren had simply got over-reliant on their CFD programmes and software modelling, believing they could use them to define the questions rather than simply provide incredibly intricate answers to tightly defined questions.
“The car just badly lacked grip once you got to a certain speed,” said Hamilton. “In slow corners it was quite good but once past a critical speed it was like the downforce just switched off.” It’s now believed that the design of the front wing endplate — the built-up box sections at the outer ends of the wing — created an aerodynamic wake that starved the downforce-producing underbody of airflow once the car reached this critical speed.
The most significant part of the car’s upgrade at the last race is believed to have been the redesigned endplates, which feed the airflow to the modified underfloor in a way that keeps the flow much more consistent through a wider range of speeds
“I don’t think we’re quite there yet,” says Hamilton. “I’d say we were still around 0.4-5s off the front. But that’s better than being 2.5s off. It’s a huge step in the right direction.” Suddenly, he has a car with enough grip to respond to his aggressive style, which previously was simply asking of the car more than it had to give.
“When you’re driving a car with so little grip and you’re sliding around, it’s just been so hard even keeping it on the track and you have to really explore your limits just to do that. Then you don’t get the tyres up to temperature because you’re not generating the cornering load and it all just gets worse. To be able to push like I can with this car as it is now is just great. You feel the greater grip, it hangs on and you have the confidence in the car and to be able to race.”
Ironically, although the turnaround in the car’s pace has come too late for any Hamilton’s championship aspirations, it could have a significant part to play in those of Jenson Button. With the Brawn driver struggling to get anywhere near his early season dominance and the Red Bull drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber looking likely to further narrow his points lead, the last thing Button needs is Hamilton depriving him of points. It’s not something Hamilton’s losing any sleep over.
“I’m not thinking about it. I don’t want to take points away from Jenson particularly but that’s the way the sport is. They might have to think strategically. I just want to win races.”
- Mark Hughes writes for Autosport magazine.
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